The trailer, reviewed: It has a lot of punching, precious little "science fiction."

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"From the director of Fast & Furious" are not words that I want to see in any Star Trek trailer.

Star Trek is a science fiction series. It is at its best when it is exploring the implications of its science. Yes, we want action and adventure, too, but there should be a context: exploration, the conflict between different cultures, the dangers of the (mis)use of technology. The TV series has always been better at this than the films, and perhaps it's understandable that the film would have different priorities in a bid for mass market appeal (though the recent success of the very sci-fi The Martian suggests that there is a healthy appetite for this kind of thing after all). Still, the new trailer looks long on punching, short on thinking.

Trailers can, of course, be completely misleading. I was suckered by the first Terminator Genisys trailer—the good trailer, the one that made the film look like it was going to be an exciting riff on the story we've seen before, not the second spoiler-laden trailer that showed what should have been a major reveal before we even stepped foot in the cinema. So maybe Star Trek Beyond will turn out to be good, but oh boy, the new trailer does not inspire confidence. Star Trek Into Darkness was the worst kind of lazy fan-service, totally squandering the promise of the reboot, but at least it was recognizable as Trek. Based on this glimpse Star Trek Beyond isn't, and it looks like it's going to plumb new depths.

For the moment, all we have is a trailer telling us about how the new movie won't be on the Enterprise or even in space. It'll be a bunch of dudes punching each other on a rocky planet somewhere.

It hits the wrong notes right from the start. You know how Guardians of the Galaxy had its '60s and '70s soundtrack, and how The Martian was a disco extravaganza? Apparently the team behind the new Star Trek movie wanted to ride the 20th century soundtrack wave, because the new Trek film has some kind of popular music playing along. (The Beastie Boys, apparently.) It doesn't feel very Star Trek-like.

That musical introduction also suggests that Scotty is still going to be a comedy character. I don't mind when action movies have jokes, but they need to be naturalistic. The comedy should derive from the situations the characters find themselves in and their in-character reactions to those situations. But that kind of writing is hard, so instead directors opt for outright comedic characters, people whose purpose is simply to make jokes. Hell is breaking loose and they're there just cracking jokes. Simon Pegg seems to be a popular choice here; Pegg has made some great TV shows and movies himself, but in both Star Trek and Mission: Impossible his presence simply exposes the laziness of film writers.

There is a small cause for optimism, however; Pegg has a writing credit for Beyond, so perhaps that aspect of the writing will not be as awful as it has been. An interview with him in The Guardian earlier this year doesn't bode well, however. Pegg says that he was brought in to take a script that was a "little bit too Star Trek-y" and make it "more inclusive." This seems just about the opposite of what they should be doing—it should be Trek-y, while not recycling past themes.

In fairness, it's a tough balancing act to pull off, but it looks like the new film doesn't even try.

I mean, I'm still going to see it, probably opening week. But I'll be doing it begrudgingly, channeling my inner Comic Book Guy. Which is the only way to watch this kind of film.

Promoted Comments

It looks like plenty of fun, just like the previous entries in the reboot. That doesn't necessarily make it "terrible", just different.

The previous movies haven't been sci-fi. They've been action movies in space. That's not what Trek is about. Wrath of Khan managed to get some exciting space battles in while still getting at the morality of not one or two but THREE dilemmas brought about by science: Khan's genetically modified superhuman abilities, the potential for abuse of the Genesis Project, and not keeping an eye on the madman you left behind in an uninhabited star system. Separate from that, it dealt with the concepts of sacrifice and friendship and where they cross. I still get misty-eyed at the end, even having seen it dozens of times.

When I finally did watch Into Darkness on Netflix, I felt a little sad that it would be the last I would see of Leonard Nimoy as he basically signed off. I was right, of course, but I think it may have been for the better judging by the mess that this has become. The one actor who I think is actually providing a proper homage to the original is Karl Urban. Everyone else is at best a caricature of the originals and a mockery at worst, as has been the case with Checkov and especially Scotty.

I don't even know how to recover from this point. Bringing in a director that has a concept of pacing might be a good start, but I'm not sure who would be willing to do it, having to take the fragments the Trek universe has been shattered into and turn them back into something recognizable as Trek. Even then, this part might not be saved.